How a Kentucky Poet Used Her Writing to Speak about Her Christian Faith

Effie Waller Smith is a little-known African American poet from Pike County, Kentucky. Her poems are about the people and beauty of the Cumberland, current events from the early twentieth century and her Christian faith. Youth groups and older elementary students in children’s programs may enjoy listening to some excerpts from her poems and thinking about how Smith’s poetry reflected her faith.

Effie Smith used verse to illustrate how her family hosted the pastor in their home at dinner:

                “Our good, yet jolly pastor

                During his circuit’s ride

                With us once each week gave grateful thanks

                For apple sauce and chicken fried.”[1]

She wrote prayers in the form of poetry:

                “We thank Thee now, dear blessed Lord,

                On this Thanksgiving Day!

                Not only for the crops this year

                (So bounteous and free)

                Of grain and fruit so plenteous

                Do we give thanks to Thee;

                But for the many gifts which Thou

                Hast on us all bestowed…[2]

She used verse to tell Bible stories:

                “To the little town of Bethle’em

                Shepherds wond’ring came to see

                Him of whom the heavenly choir

                Sang with gladness, sang with might,

                Of His birth and of His glory

                On that holy sacred night.”[3]

She used a poem to challenge someone else to evaluate their own Christian faith:

                “Brother, do you shine for Jesus,

                Is your life a life of light;

                Always radiant and brilliant,

                Ever shining clear and bright?”[4]

When her only child died, she expressed the agony towards God in a poem this way:

                “O baby dead, I cannot think God willed

                Your life should end when it had scarce begun!”[5]

In a poetic homage to preachers’ wives everywhere, Smith wrote about what her Christian faith caused her to believe happens after death this way:

                “All over our dear land to-day

                Are graves where rest their dust;

                With their work done they dreamless wait,

                The Rising of the just.”[6]

Effie Waller Smith’s life is the subject of the fourth in the Famous Kentucky Christians Club series of our high-interest, easy-reader chapter books for students reading at the second to fourth grade level which is available here in paperback or as a Kindle e-book.

By Lesley Barker c. 2020

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[1] Effie Waller Smith. “Apple Sauce and Chicken Fried”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128222. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[2] Effie Waller Smith. “A Thanksgiving”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128214. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[3] Effie Waller Smith. “Christmas”. ONLINE at https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/christmas-18. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[4] Effie Waller Smith. “Shining for Jesus”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128313. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[5] Effie Waller Smith. “To A Dead Baby”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128353. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.

[6] Effie Waller Smith. “The Preacher’s Wife”. ONLINE at https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10128338. ACCESSED 11/19/2020.